And so the journey begins.....jumping off the cliff

Drove up to Rome to take the mechanic some parts. We dedided to go ahead and tarp our loads. Man was this a hell of a load. Will post final prodruct tomorrow before we take off. Here are before pics. Truck has new water pump and ready to roll.

 

With some WD 40 or starting fluid and air from the truck, you could of cleaned the vent. I have never replaced mine, just cleaned them 2 times in 10 years.

 

Down in Tampa delivering in the am. Decent 2400 dollar load down here from Indiana. Will finish the week out $5600 gross. Kind of lost track of this weeks miles but I should still be somewhere around $2.30 all miles for my cut. Things are starting to smooth out a bit. Going to try to keep running hard for at least another month or to them I will slow down a bit.

Taking a ####ty $750 back up to the Atl for Monday delivery, home for the weekend. It hurts my overall per mile but puts me at the house for the weekend with a Monday load on my back. Getting home for the weekends hasn't been much of a problem which I'm liking. Got to get an APu set up. Mainly for the fact I can't get user to the idling truck. And it's to hot in tha southeast not to idle. I sleep like a rock when it has been cool enough not to idle but I can't stand the vibration while idling. Oh well. First world problem I guess.

Anyway maybe more updates this weekend.

Thanks

 

Well what a crap week. Issues with the truck late last week. Didn't make it back to get to my mechanic early enough on Saturday. Ended up having to unload Monday and drive over to him. He was swamped. Ended up not being ready until late Tuesday. Mind you my house is two hours away. Got my brother to drop me back out tuesday ended up dilly dallying around the truck stop until around 4pm. To late to load. Worked out ended up driving it home and spent my birthday at the house. Pockets are $2000 lighter. Inside and outside wiring harness had to be replaced. Long story but there wasn't much repairing it. It was shot. There was some rubbing and grounding out that had been missed by myself and several mechanics. Live and learn. Luckily I turned a 5k+ week last week.

Couldn't find anything early wed. Ended up working out got a hot load Atlanta to Nashville 250 miles 1k bucks. Score. Thought things were turning back to the good. Get up to deliver to the job sight at 530am. Nobody told me Nashville rush hour starts at 6am. Worse than Atlanta in my opinion. At least you can get around Atlanta up until about 7am.

Delivery is downtown Nashville. A job site. Back in off congested street. No problem done it a million times. Ran local downtown Atlanta for years, should be a breeze. Scan area, backing everything going swell. All of a sudden I hear "pop" "woosh". Windows down, hear the auto inflators blowing like crazy. Brand new ironman trailer tire wasted. 2 inch gash in the sidewall. 2 inch stud mounted to a plate that I failed to see had falling off the stack that was about a foot away from the path I had to take to get in. Stomach sank and I felt like ####. I pride myself in not making those mistakes but yet I did. I spent 12 years making local deliveries putting trailers in spots never even designed for a box truck and haven't had a wreck or popped a tire. You had to, or you had to walk each hand truck extra long distance.

Luckily I didnt get ripped anymore than I would back home as our distributor has a warehouse in Nashville. Picked tire up and ran to loves. Tight loves but I hit the bay with no pull ups. Feeling a little better. Took swift 45 minutes to get in the opposite bay. Don't feel so bad now. Well I felt bad for him. Two busted tires looked to be a similiar situation but he was in a box truck so I was confused on what he hit. Tried to help him get in the bay but he was obviously fresh out the trainers truck. He finally got it.

Back to my story. Took an ok load back to atl just to get back home and reset the week. Made it back to the house late Thursday night. The wife got to ride along to deliver so not a total bust of the week. Delivered load this Morning.

Glad I came back to Atlanta. Hopefully things turn better for next week. Got $1800 on 550 miles up to Virginia for a Monday delivery and it is light load. 10k pounds light. Guy says are you loading more stops because I can finagle these things not to take up the whole trailer. Nope load em the easy way, broker paid enough for the trailer. He said man glad to hear. Sometimes I wonder if they take over half of what's in the rate. Me too. Lol

Works out because the wife is going with me we will leave early Sunday and take our time. Got something decent lined up to come back to Atlanta but we may give it up so we can go west. Want to get a good feel of long distance running so she can make sure she wants to hit the road next year.


Sorry for the sparse updates. It's been a whirlwind.

 

Hey man, sometimes that crap happens. Glad it was only one tire & you got a good deal on a replacement.

Sounds like you're getting the hang of it & pulling some good loads. Are you finding your own loads now?

 

Not yet. Looking and calling and giving suggestions. Have started dealing directly with the brokers. But My dispatcher seems to be pretty good at it and I told him as long as he keeps working it over like he is he won't even have to get me set up on the board. lol I do want to get more involved just to learn how to do it and where to go. He has let me negotiate a couple loads already. He has been a blessing because I'm sure if I was having to figure out along with dispatching myself and I wouldn't know where I would be right now.

 

That's cool you have the support to lean on. But I bet you would be fine with self dispatch, you're smart enough.

 

You are probably right. Keeping him at my side works our good to as one of those good loads never made it to the boards. Want to build some of those connections for myself. Still have a couple of local to me places that I would like to go approach about direct shipping but just haven't had time.

Thanks for the replies and interest.

 

These things happen when your just getting started. It took me 9 months to get over a bunch of frustrating little mistakes. I had a piece of freight fall of the front of the trailer after 1000 miles about 20 min from the house thankfully. Destroyed two good tires. It was one of thoese misc pallets all shrink wrapped up at the front of the trailer. Kept telling myself I should stop and tighten it up agian..... but nope.

I tried self dispatch a few times during my first 6 months while dispatcher was on vacation or at a doc appointment and stuff. I did ok and it helped me learn a lot. But glad I didn't have that responsibility too until I was ready. I still have them dispatch me out of the office but I keep an eye on the board myself now. It's amazing what they can miss in the office while they are trying to fill 5 or 6 trucks. If I see something good I'll call myself. I have a laptop mount in the passengers seat and the board is always up on it.

 

Photos of the last few loads. Traffic signals on the back now.